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PUBLIC EXERCISES 

^ BY THE-CITIZgNS OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS 

LlnCOlIl IN COMMEMORATION'OE THE ONE-HUNDRETH 

ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

FEBRUARY TWELFTH, 

NINETEEN HUNDRED NINE 




w<i;sENTi;i) in' / 



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^74 Main St., Worcester, Mass, 

1909. 



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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



PUBLIC EXERCISES 

BY THE CITIZENS OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS 
IN COMMEMORATION OF 

THE ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE BIRTH OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

HELD IN 

MECHANICS HALL 

FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY TWELFTH 
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINE 




PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL 



Worcester, Massachusetts 
MCMIX 






Order of the City Council of Worcester, Massachusetts, 
for Public Exercises by the Citizens in CommeTnoration of 
the One-Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Abraham 
Lincoln : 

CITY OF WORCESTER. 

In City Council, November 23, 1908. 

Ordered: That the Mayor be, and he is hereby, em- 
powered and requested to appoint a committee of fifteen 
citizens to arrange for a suitable public observance of the 
one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lin- 
coln, which occurs on the twelfth day of February, A. D., 
1909. 

Received November 25, 1908. 

James Logan, Mayor. 

Approved November 27, 1908. 

A Copy, Attest : W. Henry Towne, City Clerk. 



} 






INTRODUCTORY. 



The twelfth day of February, 1909, marks the one- 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, 
the typical American man of genius, and, perhaps the great- 
est of all Americans. Its celebration throughout the land 
with fitting memorial services and other observations of a 
more or less public character testifies to the almost univer- 
sal recognition of the greatness of his life and the signifi- 
cance of his service to the Republic. In a unique way he sums 
up and humanizes the deeds and achievements, the hopes 
and ideals, that have given birth to and continue to sustain 
the great American experiment in democracy. Massachu- 
setts, the cradle of American liberty, celebrated this anni- 
versary with her old-time zeal and enthusiasm ; and the 
Heart of the Commonwealth added its tribute in the form 
of appropriate public exercises held under the auspices of 
the City Council and carried out as arranged for by a Com- 
mittee of Citizens appointed by the Mayor for that purpose. 

On petition of Alexander F. Chamberlain and others, 
the City Council of Worcester passed, on November 23, 1908, 
the following resolution : 

"Ordered : That the Mayor be, and he is hereby, empow- 
ered and requested to appoint a committee of fifteen citizens 
to arrange for a suitable public observance of the one-hun- 
dredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, which 
occurs on the twelfth day of February, A. D., 1909." 

In conformity with the vote of the City Council, Hon. 
James Logan, Mayor, appointed the following citizens to 
serve as such committee, and to make arrangements for such 
celebration, and they were duly confirmed, Dec. 14, 1908 : 

Alexander F. Chamberlain, Louis E. Feingold, 

Charles T. Tatman, Alexander H. Bullock, 



6 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY 

John F. McGrath, Thomas J. Cronin, 

Edward J. McMahon, Francis Bergstrom, 

W. Levi Bousquet, Mark N. Skerrett, 

Emil Zaeder, George T. Dominis, 

John J. Power, Reginald Washburn, 

Victor E. Runo. 

This Committee, as may be seen from the names of the 
gentlemen composing it, was thoroughly representative of 
that newer America made possible by the genius and the 
sacrifices of Lincoln and his co-laborers in the task of sav- 
ing the Union and extending the bounds of human liberty. 

The Committee met, for purposes of organization, De- 
cember 18, 1908, when the following officers were chosen: 

Chairman: Alexander F. Chamberlain. 

Secretary: Charles T. Tatman. 

It was also voted that His Honor, the Mayor, be request- 
ed to be present at all meetings of the Committee. 

The following Sub-Committees were appointed : 

On Speakers: Messrs. Bergstrom, Tatman and Cham- 
berlain. 

On Exercises: Messrs. McMahon, Bousquet, Wash- 
burn, Tatman and Chamberlain. 

On Cooperation with the Public Schools, etc. : Messrs. 
Bullock, Skerrett and Feingold. 

On Lincolniana: Messrs. McGrath, Dominis, Runo. 

On Decorations: Messrs. Power, Zaeder, Cronin. 

The General Committee and these Sub-Committees, 
with the efficient cooperation of the Mayor and City Mess- 
enger William H. Pratt, made all arrangements for the cele- 
bration on behalf of the City of Worcester. 

The Committee was very fortunate in securing as the 
orator of the occasion Hon. Arthur P. Rugg, Associate Jus- 
tice of the Supreme Judicial Court, a distinguished citizen 
of the Heart of the Commonwealth, whose eloquent and 
patriotic address was thoroughly worthy the anniversary it 
so fittingly commemorated. 

As the clergyman to offer prayer at this great meeting 
of the citizens of Worcester, the Committee unanimously 
selected the Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thomas Griffin, D. D., senior in 
length of service of all priests and ministers in the City, 



INTRODUCTORY. 7 

whose noble Christian utterance added much to the dignity 
and the solemnity of the exercises. 

Through the generous cooperation of Mr. Charles I. 
Rice, head of the Department of Music in the Public Schools 
of the City, who acted as conductor, Mr. Walter W. Farmer, 
who acted as organist, and Miss Mabelle G. Beals, who acted 
as accompanist, with the assistance of a Chorus, composed 
of Worcester singers, the large audience was enabled to en- 
joy several appropriate and well-executed musical numbers 
on the programme. 

The Sub-Committee on cooperation with the Public 
Schools had the happy thought of selecting by competition 
among the pupils of the Public and Parochial Schools a boy 
to declaim at the public meeting Lincoln's Address at the 
Dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery. The choice fell 
upon William J. Heffren, Jr., who completely justified his 
selection by his effective recital of this master-piece of Eng- 
lish. 

The meeting was presided over by the Hon. James Lo- 
gan, Mayor of Worcester, whose address, in brief but elo- 
quent words, did equal justice to the dead and to the living, 
to hero and to nation, to the America of Lincoln's day 
and the newer America of our own time. 

From all points of view the Commemoration Services 
in Worcester were a success, and the great audience showed 
again and again their recognition of the significance of the 
occasion and their appreciation of those who took part in 
the services. A touching incident of the meeting occurred 
when, as the members of Post 10 of the Grand Army of the 
Republic began to retire from the hall, the entire audience 
arose and, as a marked tribute to those who had been asso- 
ciated with Lincoln in saving the Union, remained standing 
until the last veteran had passed out. 

Besides the great public meeting in Mechanics Hall, the 
Superintendent of Public Schools in cooperation with the 
Committee arranged for commemoration meetings for pupils 
of the High and Grammar Schools throughout the City, at 
which suitable programmes were carried out, including 
addresses by members of the Lincoln Committee, members 
of the School Committee, veterans of the G, A. R., and other 



8 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

citizens. In all of these the boys and girls of the various 
schools took their part. 

The cooperation of Samuel S. Green (Librarian Emeri- 
tus) and Robert K. Shaw, Librarian of the Worcester Free 
Public Library, with the Lincoln Committee brought about 
an interesting and extensive exhibit of Lincolniana of all 
kinds (many things being altogether rare and valuable) in 
the Art Rooms of the Library, which was visited by a large 
number of people of every class in the community. 

The decorations of the City Hall and of Mechanics Hall 
were simple but effective and the decorations all over the 
City showed a significant appreciation of the simplicity of 
the great genius whom the day commemorated, as well as a 
widespread evidence of genuine American patriotism. 



PROGRAMME OF PUBLIC EXERCISES. 

ORDER OF EXERCISES. 

1 The Soldier's Chorus ..... Gounod 

2 Prayer 

Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thomas Griffin, D. D. 

3 Address 

Hon. James Logan, Mayor of Worcester 

4 O Captain, My Captain . . . Edgar Stillman Kelley 

5 Declamation : Lincoln's Address at the Dedication of the 
Gettysburg Cemetery 

William J. Heffren, Jr. 

6 Lincoln's Message: Final Chorus, "Caractacus" — Elgar 

(Words Adapted) 

7 Oration 

Hon. Arthur P. Rugg, 

Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court 

of Massachusetts 

8 America Carey 

(The audience is requested to join with the chorus 
in singing America) 

The chorus is composed of Worcester singers. Miss 
Mabelle G. Reals, Accompanist ; Walter W. Farmer, Orga- 
nist ; Charles I. Rice, Conductor. 



PRAYER BY RT. REV. MGR. THOMAS 
GRIFFIN, D.D. 

Almighty God, Our Father, we humbly and reverently 
bow before Thee, to pay our homages of love and duty. We 
assemble here to-night to commemorate the one-hundredth 
anniversary of the birthday of the great man, that Thou 
didst raise up in our country's peril, to preserve, protect 
and defend the Constitution given to us by the Fathers as a 
precious heritage. 

We thank Thee with all our hearts, for the blessings 
which Thou didst bestow on the country, when as a Nation, 
the Colonies formed that Union of States, which strength- 
ened and prospered the government of the people, and made 
the United States a power for good in the world. 

To the valiant Captain, successful organizer, wise and 
most prudent administrator, who stood sponsor at the birth 
of our nation upon its career of political independence, we 
render sincere thanks and are grateful that his memory is 
enshrined in the hearts of the people in the endearing term. 
Father of His Country. 

We are mindful of the great favors, which Thou didst 
confer upon the pioneers of the early time, in inspiring them 
to plant a nation in the sound and underlying principles of 
liberty. Under Thy direction, they brought forth the model 
of safe and orderly government, challenging the admiration 
of the world, and providing a shelter land for the oppressed 
and homeless of the nations of the earth. But, oh, how 
great and unbounded our joy, our love, our gratitude and 
thanksgiving for having preserved to us and to generations 
yet to follow the precious heritage of liberty, which was 
won and fostered and cherished by those sturdy and brave 
men of that day. 

In our subsequent development, in the days of dissen- 
sion and strife, in the days that tried men's souls, the 



PRAYER. II 

days when the strong man and seer was needed, Thou, O 
Merciful God, earnest to our assistance. Thou didst send that 
man, first having prepared him by causing him to pass 
through all the phases of hard and rugged life, strengthen- 
ing his body and making him capable of great endurance. 
To mental power of ever growing brightness, Thou didst 
unite a heart that throbbed in its every beat for the welfare 
of his countrymen, reaching in his paternal solicitude to the 
remotest hamlet in the land. To Washington and his com- 
peers, we are indebted for the creation under God 
of the Republic of the United States. To Lincoln, above all 
men, are we indebted for the redemption of the nation, its 
return to the enjoyment of its norm.al liberty. 

All great things are achieved by sacrifice, and he, the 
chosen of God, elected and endorsed by the people, became 
the willing victim. Strong in the consciousness of right 
doing, he was potent before the people and their represen- 
tatives. He leaned upon the principle and acted upon it, 
that right always makes might. He valued his life only in 
so far as he could carry out his oath to preserve, protect and 
defend the government of the nation. He stands to-day be- 
fore the world, the Redeemer of the land. 

If we call Washington the Father of his country, wc 
lovingly look upon the face of Abraham Lincoln and salute 
him as the Saviour of theRepublic. Millions of treasure and 
hecatombs of human lives have been sacrificed to preserve 
the Union, but the culmination is reached in the awful trag- 
edy, which cuts off without warning the loved President of 
the people. Had he then a moment of consciousness, we 
might hear the whisper : "It is finished, for you, my country, 
for you, my people." 

We listen to his words on the battlefield of Gettysburg. 
It is the voice of his inmost soul; it is a prayer; it is a 
prophecy. This nation shall have a new birth of freedom, 
its star of destiny shall not be extinguished, and government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not 
perish from the earth. 

To Thee, God, in whose hands are the destinies of na- 
tions, we lift up our hearts and humbly pray that our Na- 
tion may live on forever. 

Amen. 



ADDRESS BY HON. JAMES LOGAN, MAYOR 
OF WORCESTER. 

We have met tonight to pay our tribute of love and re- 
spect to the memory of a man who fills a large place in 
history. 

A man who was the product of republican institutions, 
without a titled ancestry, without the learning of the 
schools, poor in purse and with no claims to greatness but 
his own God-given qualities of mind and heart and soul. 

But true greatness after all, in spite of its name, is not 
so much a certain size, as a certain quality in human lives, 
and, measured by that standard, Abraham Lincoln was a 
great man. 

It is fitting and proper that such a gathering as this 
should be held in this hall, filled as it is with the fragrant 
memories of the past. 

Here we have listened to the strains of the sublime 
symphony which has lifted us upward toward heaven, and 
standing on this platform, some of the noblest and brightest 
minds of earth have delivered their message. 

In this hall, in the years which preceded the mighty 
struggle that ended on the field of Appomattox, we listened 
to the trumpet tones of Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd 
Garrison, as they eloquently pleaded for the cause of liberty. 

Here was the ralljdng point of patriotism in those aw- 
ful years when this man did his mighty work, while the life 
of the nation seemed to hang trembling in the balance. 

Those years when his Excellency, Hon. John A. An- 
drew, the great war governor of Massachusetts the friend 
of Lincoln, was the incarnation of the highest type of pat- 
riotism. 

Those years when Lincoln stood as the great High 
Priest of freedom and made decisions which wrung his sad 



ADDRESS BY MAYOR LOGAN. 13 

heart and which he knew would drench the altar of liberty 
with the best blood of the nation. 

In those awful years from '61 to '65 when the nation 
needed defenders, sons of Massachusetts standing on the 
platform in this hall looking down into the faces of Wor- 
cester men, stretched out their arms and made their appeal 
for men to make this man's work effective, saying not "go", 
but "come", and nobly did the men of Worcester join in that 
mighty chorus which went up from school and store, office, 
farm and factory, 

"We are coming father Abraham, 
three hundred thousand strong." 

Then came that day in *65 when the war was over and 
at last there was peace. 

These men who fought the battles for the Union had 
nobly done their part, they had seen the standard that repre- 
sented rebellion go down in eternal defeat. 

They had suffered, they had endured, but they had been 
spared to see the end. That noble army closing up on its 
tattered colors which had been, through four long bloody 
years, the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, marching 
up Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, passed in review 
and said good-bye to the great leaders who had led them and 
who had written their names into the history of the nation. 

Then, having finished their work, that line of blue faded 
out of sight in the distance as soldiers, once more to take 
their places in the ranks of industry as humble citizens of 
the nation they had helped to save, and with a joy that men 
of the present generation can never know, these veterans 
turned their faces toward their northern and western 
homes, once more to clasp in a warm and loving embrace 
those mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts who, out of 
their bitter experience, could bear testimony to the truth of 
that saying of Milton's 

"They also serve who only stand and wait." 

While we have met tonight to do honor to the memory 
of our great war president, great honor should also be given 
to the soldier by whose aid Lincoln was enabled to write his 
name high on the roll of fame. 



14 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

And, when in imagination we see the picture of the vic« 
torious army, we need to be reminded that there were other 
actors in the great drama who must not be forgotten to- 
night. 

The noble wife and mother with her family of little ones 
about her, dependent for daily bread on the strong right arm 
that was now needed by the nation, and yet, and yet, know- 
ing that want and privation was to be the portion for herself 
and helpless little ones, could say to the husband and father 
"Go" and after he had gone, and the music of the fife and 
drum had died away in the distance, she turned to her hard 
task, solitary and alone, facing the hard battle of life with no 
•strains of martial music to cheer and inspire her to fight a 
battle which in many cases required more courage, more real 
heroism than to face the shotted guns which thundered in 
the wilderness. 

It was not woman's part in that great conflict to storm 
Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, where the gallant Plun- 
kett, whose face looks down upon us tonight from yonder 
wall, baptized the colors of the 21st Mass. with his life blood, 
nor yet to stand, a living wall of blue, to hold in check and 
finally beat back that tidal wave of gray that broke upon 
the slopes of Gettysburg ; but she had done her part, she had 
been no stranger to sorrow and privation. 

And, while at the end she may not wear the badge of the 
Grand Army upon her breast, nor the service chevron on her 
sleeve, that agonizing heart, which through four long years 
had throbbed as though it would surely break, and those 
bitter tears of anguish that had coursed down her cheeks, 
had set the lines of a diviner service chevron in the fair and 
beautiful face. 

So tonight our thought is turned backward to Lincoln, 
let us remember the sacrifices of the women who also helped 
to make Lincoln's work effective. 

There is still another picture which ought not to be for- 
gotten. The war is over and that other army in gray which 
faced the north is also to fade away in the distance, but in 
the opposite direction, but this one goes to wasted fields and 
ruined homes. Men brought up in luxury and unused to 
work are to take up the burdens of life anew, but they go 



ADDRESS BY MAYOR LOGAN. 15 

from Appomattox with the most kindly and magnanimous 
message that victor ever gave to vanquished. 

When, on the field of Appomattox, Gen. Grant gave or- 
ders to issue food to Gen. Lee's starving soldiers and told the 
men to return to their homes and take with them theiy 
horses to plow the fields laid waste by war thus to provide 
bread and shelter for loved ones in the southland, he was as 
truly inspired of God as was Isaiah of old, and on the field 
of Appomattox the first step was taken which made possible 
&. united nation today. 



INTRODUCING JUSTICE ARTHUR P. RUGG 

We do well to observe these memorial days, these mile- 
stones which mark the great highway of human progress, 
and so we have met here tonight to listen to one of our most 
honored citizens who, looking through the perspective of 
years, will bring to our view a clearer vision of this sad- 
faced kindly man, whose homely face was an index to a 
great and beautiful soul. 

This man criticized, abused, maligned and ridiculed, 
who felt, as few men have been called upon to feel, the isola- 
tion, the utter loneliness of high official position, while bear- 
ing for you and me and for generations yet unborn, a burden 
which God alone could correctly estimate. 

But such a gathering as this will have little value unless 
we are inspired by the record of his noble life of service, un- 
less we incorporate into our lives the noble sentiment to 
which he gave expression in that immortal address at Get- 
tysburg, to which we have just listened, that unless we too 

"highly resolve that this nation, under God, shall have 

a new birth of freedom", 

and that we of the present generation dedicate ourselves to 

the unfinished work to which he gave 

"the last full measure of devotion". 

It is usual at a gathering of this character to introduce 
the speaker, but the orator tonight needs no introduction to 
a Worcester audience and I shall take the liberty to change 
the usual order, and so. Justice Rugg, it comes to be my 
happy privilege to present to you this splendid audience. 



i6 




HON. ARTHUR P. RUGG 



ORATION BY ARTHUR P. RUGG, ASSO- 
CIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME JUDI- 
CIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Mr. Mayor, Members of the City Council . 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Twice before have the people of Worcester assembled 
in honor of Abraham Lincoln. 

The first time it was to listen to him. That was on Sep- 
tember 12, 1848. Before an audience which overflowed the 
old City Hall, whose site is now marked by the statue of our 
great Senator, he discussed the political issues of that day. 
It was his first address in New England. But his striking 
appearance, the novelty and freshness of his style, his apt 
anecdote and his persuasive eloquence awakened warm en- 
thusiasm. In this speech is found the promise of the clear 
statement, lucid thought and convincing logic, which distin- 
guish his later utterances. 

Again, when the nation was overwhelmed in the fresh 
grief and darkening gloom of his tragic death, in this hall 
the city council and the people gathered to hear the eulogy 
pronounced by Alexander H. Bullock. The profound and 
universal lamentation for the wicked assassination which 
took him from earth, and the dawning appreciation of the 
surpassing grandeur of his service and preeminent place in 
history were spoken in words of solemn beauty and power, 
by one of the first orators of that day and generation. 

And now, two score and four years after the dust of 
the martyred president has mingled with the prairie he 
loved, we join with a reunited nation, north and south, east 
and west, to celebrate the centenary of his birth, in a rever- 
ential but triumphal chorus of thanksgiving and praise that 

17 



l8 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

this man has lived and has written his message of wisdom 
and sacrifice where it shall be read by all men in all time to 
come. 

There is nothing startling or miraculous about the de- 
tails of his life. On the eve of the presidency, he himself 
said that it was summed up in the single line, "The short and 
simple annals of the poor". Kentucky has become dis- 
tinguished for his birth. He first breathed in a log cabin of 
a single room with no floor but the ground. His father, a 
man of integrity though not of enterprise, was unable to 
read, and could barely write his name. His mother taught 
him the Bible, but her life went out when the child was on- 
ly ten years old. No woman was ever paid nobler tribute 
than this from her son long after her death : "All that I 
am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother — Blessings on 
her memory". Removed first to Indiana and then to Illi- 
nois, the lad lived under the hard conditions which surround- 
ed the home of the frontiersman. Felling the forest, build- 
ing the cabin, breaking the soil, splitting the rails with 
which to fence the new field, spending at school "by littles" 
not more than a year all told, gaining experience in a flat 
boat voyage to New Orleans, always pitifully poor — ^these 
were the circumstances under which he came to manhood. 
The books he read were few, but the best — ^the Bible, Aesop's 
Fables, Pilgrim's Progress, a Life of Washington, Robinson 
Crusoe. He studied composition by the light of the fire, 
and practiced writing on a wooden shovel, whose surface 
from time to time he made fresh with a knife. There was 
another river trip to New Orleans,where his soul was burned 
with the sight of a negro girl in a slave market. He was 
silent, "said nothing much", but he there took before God 
the oath, which lasted through life, that if he ever got a 
chance he would hit hard the institution of slavery. He 
worked in a store and was postmaster, grew in strength and 
stature of bodj'', and meeting the customs of his neighbor- 
hood defeated the champion fighters in hand to hand con- 
tests. Elected captain of a militia company of his towns- 
men, he served in the Black Hawk War. Returning he en- 
gaged in store business, with a partner who drank whiskey 
while Lincoln read, and in a short time the inevitable failure 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 19 

and load of debt overtook him. Scorning to take advantage 
of insolvency or bankruptcy, it was after he was in congress 
that the last of these store obligations was discharged. He 
established the reputation for honesty which was so impor- 
tant an element of his strength. Discovering one morning 
that by mistake a four ounce balance had been used to meas- 
ure the last sale of a half pound of tea on the day before, 
he weighed out the rest of the purchase, closed the store and 
walked a long distance to deliver it to the customer. For a 
time he was deputy under a democratic land surveyor, but 
declined the appointment until assured that its acceptance 
involved no sacrifice of his political principles. This educa- 
tion, rude and harsh as it was, lacking in all the elements 
now commonly regarded as essential, was, nevertheless, for 
the nature rugged enough to survive it, an admirable train- 
ing for leadership. It taught love of learning, without which 
there would be blighting ignorance ; temperance, without 
which amid universal invitation to excess there could be no 
respect from others ; honesty, without it no self respect ; 
resourcefulness in speech and thought, without it no pro- 
gress ; kindness and sympathy, without these no knowledge 
of human nature; self reliance, without it no confidence to 
undertake new responsibility ; and, finally, will power, with- 
out which there could be no perseverance to endure to the 
end. With all these faculties awakened, Abraham Lincoln 
stood on the threshold of his life work. At the age of twen- 
ty-seven he was admitted to the bar, and removed to Spring- 
field, the capitol of his state, which remained his home. 

The twenty-four years intervening until his nomination 
to the presidency covered Lincoln's professional career. It 
is not all a mystery that this child of the West came to the 
helm of state at the age of fifty-two clothed in the full pan- 
oply of intellectual power. It is only in the imagination that 
giants are born full armored for the ordeals of life. The ele- 
mental forces of a human being grow by exercise, harden by 
experience, and become strong through trial, to endure the 
stress of storm. Men do not "gather grapes of thorns or 
figs of thistles". The overshadowing capacity of the great 
president during our national crisis was not built in a mo- 
ment nor founded upon the sands. It was nurtured, trained 



io LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

and nerved through these four and twenty years of labor in 
the law. He became fitted by attainment as well as by en- i 

dowment for the tremendous task which awaited him. For- 
tunately he left memoranda for a law lecture, where may be 
found the standard by which the lawyer should be mea- 
sured, and the canons by which he was himself guided. He ' 
said : "The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of t ^ 
every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for tomor- i 
row which can be done today. . . Extemporaneous speaking 
should be practiced and cultivated . . . And yet there is not 
a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much 
on speech-making. Discourage litigation. Persuade your 
neighbors to compromise whenever you can ... As a peace- 
maker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good 
man . . . Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely 
be found than one who does this . . . There is a vague, popu- 
lar belief that lawyers are dishonest. I say vague, because 
when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are 
reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it ap- 
pears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very 
distinct and vivid . . . Let no young man choosing the law 
for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief." In 
the light of these principles he practiced his chosen profes- 
sion. He was in a new country. Law books were few. The 
implements in his work shop were meagre in comparison 
with the abundance now at the command of everybody. The 
inevitable result of these conditions was that the charac- 
teristics of a successful lawyer were of a high order. He was 
obliged to reason. He could not depend upon authorities ; 
they were too few. He was compelled to think. Logic of 
necessity became his everyday companion. In such a forum, 
the man of strong mind, broad comprehension, clear discern- 
ment, whose intellectual processes were accurate and whose 
conclusions were sound, could alone maintain a position of 
preeminence. In his life upon the circuit he mingled daily 
with men of action, of the restless energy, diversified habits 
and clashing opinions of frontiersmen, who were converting 
a wilderness into a state. A matchless school this for educa- 
tion in clear thought, plain speech and human nature. Four 
terms in the state legislature and one in congress did not 



ORAtlON BY HON. RUGCi. at 

seriously interrupt his practice in the law. They were inci- 
dents in his career. The variety, character and extent of his 
professional work demonstrate that he was a lawyer with 
few equals in his state. He never blunted his moral percep- 
tions for the sake of temporary gain. In his early practice 
a client came to him with a technically legal land title, the 
enforcement of which would impoverish a widow and or- 
phans. He refused the case sayng,"You must remember some 
things, legally right, are not morally right". His life at the 
bar demonstrates that there is acquirement worth more than 
money, attainment greater than victory, achievement loftier 
than success; that integrity is above riches, wisdom more 
than gold, and character higher than all wealth. 

I dwell upon this aspect of Lincoln's life because it 
seems to me to account for some of the marvelous attributes 
which shone so brilliantly in him as president. The close 
reasoning, the flawless logic, the sound constitutional law, 
the unanswerable argum.ent, of his state papers grew out of 
the stern combats waged in the courts. These weapons had 
been tempered in the fierce heats of forensic contest, and 
forged under the heavy blows of able antagonists. The self 
restraint and calmness, so characteristic of him as president, 
are inevitably developed in the wise man who practices in 
the courts. 

But there is another epoch in his life before 1860 to be 
considered. Interest in politics was as much a part of the 
lawyer's life in Illinois before the war as the air he breathed. 
Lincoln adopted the principles of the Whig party, which was 
in the minority in his state, and he supported her candidates 
upon the stump in all campaigns of consequence. Negro 
slavery had always been a tender question in American poli- 
tics. Introduced into Virginia the year before the landing 
at Plymouth Rock, it had spread so that at the adoption of 
the Constitution it existed to a greater or less extent in most 
of the 13 states. The fathers of the Republic recognized it 
as an evil. But the succeeding generation in the South, be- 
lieving the institution necessary for their prosperity, sought 
its extension. The fight raged until, in 1820, the Missouri 
Compromise was enacted by Congress, which, admitting 
Missouri as a slave state, excluded slavery forever from a 



» LINCOI^N ANNIVERSARY. 

line north of the southern boundary of Kansas. In 1850 an- 
other compromise was enacted, not touching however the 
line or principle established by the Missouri compromise. 
But Kansas, from which slavery was excluded by that act,* 
was coveted by the South as new ground for slavery. In 
1854 under the leadership of Senator Douglas the Missouri 
compromise was repealed. This was like a fire bell in the 
night. Throughout the North it awakened those before in- 
different to the inordinate demands of the slave holder. It 
roused Abraham Lincoln to the danger which threatened 
the very existence of free institutions. In 1858 he was no- 
minated by the new born Republican party to compete with 
Douglas for election as senator of the United States. Let us 
pause a moment to contrast these champions. Stephen A. 
Douglas, a Vermonter by birth, four years younger than his 
antagonist, came to Illinois penniless, when barely of age. 
First a school teacher, then a lawyer, states attorney, mem- 
ber of the legislature, Justice of the State Supreme Court at 
twenty-nine, three times elected representative in congress, 
a senator of the United States at 34,twice a formidable candi- 
date for his party nomination for the presidency, now at the 
age of forty-five he looked confidently forward not only to an 
immediate re-election to the Senate but two years later to 
nomination and election to the highest office in the gift of 
the people. His career had been almost meteoric. Attractive 
in appearance, of great ability, an accomplished speaker and 
ready debater, versatile, adroit, skilful, popular, he was easi- 
ly the most prominent man in his party. Lincoln lacked the 
personal charm of his opponent, had held no public office of 
distinction save the single term in congress, and was almost 
unknown outside his own state. Yet he met his rival without 
bravado and without fear. He knew he was now in an are- 
na different from any in which he had before engaged. The 
national setting of this historic debate invited a style of ora- 
tory on his part which would stir the passions, blind the 
judgments and sweep away the reasoning of voters. Border 
ruffianism striving to secure for slavery by violence the ter- 
ritory that the sober intelligence of her citizens denied it, 
had bathed in blood the virgin soil of Kansas. Our own Sum- 
ner at his post of duty in the Senate had been murderously 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 23 

assaulted by a representative of the slave power. The occa- 
sion would appear to the ordinary stump speaker to invoke 
vituperation and to urge the swish of the scorpion lash in an 
attack upon slavery and upon all who did not array them- 
selves against its extension. The bugle call seemed to sound 
to a fray in which woi'ds of fury alone could fitly charac- 
terize the treachery of Douglas to the truths of the Declara- 
tion of Independence and to one of the historic compromises 
of our legislation. 

But there is nothing of violence in the debates of Lin- 
coln, no appeal to passion, no attempt to fire the blood. He 
spurned those petty tools of the agitator. He even dropped 
the small arms of wit and anecdote, with which he had been 
wont to hold his audiences. Rising above the region in which 
they can be employed, he lifted the whole discussion to the 
platform of reason. He addressed the intelligence and not 
the prejudice of his hearers. He argued in plain words the 
vital question so clearly that none could fail to understand. 
The live coal from off the altar had touched his lips as truly 
as those of the Hebrew prophet of old. The froth of the 
hustings was burned away. His first speech opened with 
the memorable words, "A house divided against itself can- 
not stand. I believe this government cannot endure half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved 
— ^I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will 
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the 
other." He planted himself squarely upon the proposition 
that slavery was "a moral, social and political wrong". The 
contest was the eternal conflict between right and wrong. It 
was no longer a question of more political expediency. His 
whole moral nature was aroused. But he was no idealist ; he 
was a practical, hard-headed man of affairs. He knew 
through and through the principles of the three great char- 
ters of our liberties, the Declaration of Independence, the 
Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery forever from 
the northwest territory, and the Constitution. This combi- 
nation of conscience, common sense and knowledge of the 
subject made him invincible. But he entered upon no ar- 
raignment of the slaveholder. He cheerfully acknowledged 
that the North was as responsible as the South for the pres- 



24 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 



ence in the Constitution of the compromises touching slav- 
ery, and that Northerners under similar conditions would 
support it with as much vigor as the Southerners. But, as it 
was wrong from every point of view, its further extension 
should be restricted, and the country must be satisfied that 
the institution was on the road to ultimate extinction. Doug- 
las had justified his repeal of the Missouri compromise by'a 
doctrine which he called "popular sovereignty", that is, let- 
ting each territory decide for itself, free from congressional 
interference, whether it should have slaves within its bord- 
ers or not. But then came the Dred Scott decision, holding 
unconstitutional a national law excluding slaves from the 
territories. Lincoln saw clearly that this decision was whol- 
ly incompatible with Douglas's theory of popular sovereign- 
ty. Brushing aside the advice of his party advisers, he put 
to Douglas the famous question whether the people of any 
territory could in any lawful way against the wish of any 
citizen of the United States exclude slavery from its limits? 
Douglas knew that to answer no meant the defeat in his se- 
natorial campaign. Lincoln saw with equal clearness that 
an affirmative answer would alienate the slave states, 
probably divide his party, and insure his defeat two years 
later in the race for the White House. Douglas answered yes 
and tried to harmonize his theory with the decision of the 
courts. Lincoln's relentless logic laid bare the fallacy of his 
Douglas' sophisms, and left his election to the Senate a vic- 
tory which turned to dust and ashes in the larger contest 
for the presidency. Lincoln entered upon these debates lit- 
tle known outside his own state. He emerged a figure of na- 
tional importance. He had met the foremost democratic 
statesman in the country on his chosen ground. He had 
driven his adversary to a position, which insured a split in 
his party. He had demonstrated that in keenness of intel- 
lect, power of analysis, lucidity of convincing language, he 
was no whit inferior to him, who had been heralded as the 
"little giant". He had done this with such calmness of 
speech, self poise, breadth and depth of comprehension of 
the fundamental principles of our government and the na- 
tional issues then depending, as to stamp him a statesman of 
the first order. The crowds which listened to him, their 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. aS 

confidence in his character, their understanding of his argu- 
ments, their enthusiasm for his personality, established his 
deep hold upon the hearts of the people. In February, 1860, 
came the Cooper Institute address. The leaders of the party 
in New York were present. The strength, culture and intel- 
ligence of the metropolis gathered to hear this stranger 
from the West. William Cullen Bryant presided. It is safe 
to say that no political speech in our history has created 
such an impression. Those who came expecting to laugh 
were disappointed. But all were captivated by the simplici- 
ty and clearness of statement and the unanswerable reason- 
ing of his argument. The closing sentence, like many an- 
other of Lincoln's, is an eternal truth, which has become one 
of the rich phrases of our tongue : 

"Let us have faith that right makes right, and 

in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty 

as we understand it." 

The nomination of Lincoln for the presidency was the 
result of no blind chance or factional intrigue. It was the 
action of hard-headed, far seeing patriots. Probably no po- 
litical assembly ever gathered actuated by higher ideals, less 
under the control of party leaders or more closely in touch 
with the people than that which met at Chicago in May of 
1860. They were the representatives of a new party which 
owed its origin to the awakening of the national conscience. 
They were bent not on the spoils of office, but upon the sal- 
vation of free institutions and popular government from the 
ruin which they saw at hand. Intelligently, deliberately and 
practically they set about their task. They nominated the 
man whose record gave greatest promise, both as a vote 
getter and administrator. His chief opponents, Seward and 
Chase, strong though they were, nevertheless had elements 
of weakness which rendered doubtful their success at the 
polls. Lincoln had seen more clearly than anyone all aspects 
of slavery, and both by what he had said and had left un- 
said, had shown himself not only a thinker and debater, but 
a political strategist of a high order. He had given practical 
political direction to the moral sentiment of the North which 
Uncle Tom's Cabin had aroused. Garrison, Phillips and 
Harriet Beecher Stowe had awakened the conscience of the 



26 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

country. Lincoln became the incarnation of that con- 
science. 

Between the election and inauguration of Lincoln a situ- 
ation arose unprecedented in history. The slave states un-- 
dertook to withdraw from the Union, and, forming a confed- 
eration of their own, elected a president and established the 
machinery of an independent government. President Bucha- 
nan, advised by his Attorney General, an eminent jurist,took 
the position that our nation had no power to protect itself 
from such dismemberment, and supinely suffered important 
departments of government to be in the control of secession 
sympathizers and to be plundered in their interests. No one 
appreciated more keenly than the president-elect the con- 
dition which confronted him. History has confirmed the 
truth of his farewell, uttered on that chilly February morn 
in 1861, to his neighbors at Springfield : 

"I now leave, not knowing when or whether 
I may return, with a task upon me greater than 
that which rested upon Washington." 

His stature as a statesman began to appear in his first 
inaugural. Nominated and elected as an opponent of the ex- 
tension of slavery, he leaves this question to one side. Slave- 
ry had been overshadowed for the moment by secession. He 
was confronted with armed rebellion. He shows by logic ir- 
refutable and language so plain that he who ran might read 
and understand, that the integrity of the nation could not 
lawfully be broken, and that the Union must be preserved ; 
that under the Constitution slavery was entitled to protec- 
tion where it already existed and should receive it, and if 
there was to be aggression it must be begun by others. Then 
he closed with that marvellous appeal to the patriotism of 
the wavering : 

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies but 
friends. Though passion may have strained, it 
must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic 
chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell 
the chorus of the Union when again touched as 
surely they will be by the better angels of our na- 
ture." 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 27 

He had an intuitive comprehension of the work before 
him. It has been fitly said : 

"Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no 

f airweather sailor ; the new pilot was hurried to 

the helm in a tornado." 

He prepared his inaugural, and announced his policy, 
alone. No one was consulted until it was completed, and 
then only a few insignificant changes were made. Action in 
emergencies tests men's power. Here was the foretaste of 
wisdom and self reliance, which carried him through the 
four years of battle strain. No ruler was ever in more despe- 
rate plight. The army was insignificant and widely scatt- 
ered. In conspicuous instances its officers were traitors. 
Arms and equipments were in the hands of the rebellious 
states. The Treasury was empty. Credit was low. Office 
holders were faithless. Army, money, faithful public ser- 
vants must be created anew. It was upon the president of a 
constitutional republic, and not upon the unhampered mo- 
narch of a despotism, that this burden rested. The support 
of an intelligent and free people must be ungrudgingly given 
or it could not be borne. It was of last importance, there- 
fore, that the plain people should believe in the government 
and in its chosen head. No step could be taken in advance of 
their conviction or failure would follow. First Lincoln called 
to cabinet positions those who had been his rivals. 
Of those, Seward, Chase and Stanton were men of strong 
will, self confident and at first almost contemptuous of the 
capacity of their unschooled, unpolished chief. But they 
learned his sovereignty. The fierce buf f etings of contending 
factions, the vicious attacks of enemies, the covert thrusts of 
traitorous allies, the ferocious hatred of Southern sym- 
pathizers, the inconceivable difficulties of the main problem 
of conducting the war — all these would have swept a less 
masterful man off his feet. But he was patient. He listened 
to all suggestions. He weighed all arguments. He took no 
step until he was sure. And he never had to retrace. 

We cannot now follow his course as president in detail. 
Its history is familiar. But there are three phases of hid 
work as president, in the examination of which we may gain 
an insight into his overshadowing greatness. 



28 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

1. The instant and continuing necessity of his position 
was the conduct of war. In this respect the South had un- 
questionably the better start. Jefferson Davis, himself a 
graduate of West Point, had been in intimate touch with mil- 
itary leaders as Secretary of War. His acquaintance and 
experience enabled him at the outset to select the best mate- 
rial within reach. Lee, Jackson, Johnston, Early, Stewart 
and others attest his acuteness upon this point. Lincoln, an 
entire stranger to arms and unacquainted with military men, 
was compelled to grope. His painful search for a general 
was doomed to failure for three years. He tried first Mc- 
Clellan, next Burnside, and then Hooker, giving to them each 
in turn fatherly help and magnanimous encouragement. But 
each in turn w as found wanting. Yet in that disheartening 
period of vexatious disappointments he developed on his 
own part a sagacity and skill as a military strategist, which 
has since won the commendation of the highest authorities 
on war. Finally when Grant was found and Meade and 
Sherman, he gave to them constant, unstinted and cordial 
support. But at least equal in importance to finding the 
right leaders was keeping full the ranks of the army. His 
thorough knowledge of people and power to state arguments 
so that everybody could understand what they meant en- 
abled him to depend constantly on the plain citizen. He was 
one of the com.mon people and they knew it. By public letter, 
by message and in conversation he stated the Union cause so 
convincingly that in the country stores, on the streets, wher- 
ever men gathered, it was said, "Lincoln is right about 
that". The people believed in his judgment and trusted his 
wisdom. Above all, there radiated from his presence an at- 
mosphere of sympathy. His reluctance to approve the cap- 
ital verdicts of courts martial and his numerous pardons 
made the very air vocal with his mercy. His visits to the 
hospitals and the camps convinced the soldiers of his inter- 
est in them. There was nothing of what in modern phrase is 
called magnetism or mixing. He maintained the dignity of 
the presidency, but the pulse in his hand shake and the "God 
bless you" of his voice spoke his brotherhood to the humblest 
soldier. His countenance furrowed with the deep lines of 
care showed not only that he bore the heavy responsibilities 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 29. 

of the state but also that he shared the sorrows of the widow, 
the fatherless and the childless. The heart of a father and 
the wisdom of the statesman went into the composition of 
this letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston : 

"Dear Madam : 

I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the Adjutant-General 
of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five 
sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. 
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of 
mine which should attempt to beguile you from the 
grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot re- 
frain from tendering to you the consolation that 
may be found in the thanks of the Republic they 
died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may 
assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and 
leave you only the cherished memory of the loved 
and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours 
to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of 
freedom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln." 

No funeral oration could be more pathetic, no paternal 
comfort more tender, no elegiac poem more beautiful. Small 
wonder that the war song, "We are coming, Father Abra- 
ham", was on the tongues of hundreds of thousands of our 
soldiers. 

2. Second only to prosecution of the war was the con- 
duct of our diplomatic relations. This was largely in the 
hands of Secretary Seward. But it appears from recently 
published documents that the president exercised a domi- 
nant oversight in this department. It was his guiding hand 
that maintained peace and respect abroad and prevented any 
country from recognizing the independence of the Confeder- 
acy. In vital instances he overruled his secretary when 
recommendation of the latter would have certainly involved 
us in war with Great Britain, a calamity the extent of which 
cannot be estimated. The capture of the Confederate emis- 
saries from the English steamer, known as the Trent affair, 
was managed with such ability and discretion as to avoid 
war with England, and establish a high place for American 
diplomacy, and at the same time satisfy public sentiment at 



30 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

home. The foundations were firmly laid, as occasion arose, 
for the claim against Great Britain for the destruction of 
Am.erican shipping by the Confederate privateers fitted out 
in English shipyards. The Award of the Geneva Arbitration 
was the fruit of the diplomatic foresight of the administra- 
tion of this man of the people. 

3. But the chief interest in Lincoln's presidency centers 
about slavery. Slavery was the cause of the war. It was 
Lincoln's attitude respecting it which had made him a na- 
tional figure. It was the subject of his constant thought. He 
had scarcely taken the oath of office when the violent anti- 
slavery advocates urged immediate action toward freeing 
the slaves. But Lincoln took no one into his council. He 
studied colonization for the negroes and vainly tried to se- 
cure support for it. Failure along this avenue eliminated it 
as a ground of criticism later. Then he urged compensated 
emancipation, and pleaded that the slaveholders might see 
their way to accept it. But their blindness prevented its 
adoption. Early in the war he successively cancelled orders 
of emancipation issued by two generals in the field. He 
waited for public opinion in the border States and through 
the North to develop until it understood that slavery was the 
cause of the terrible scourge of war, and that the removal of 
the cause would hasten its end. He listened patiently to all 
suggestions. He bore without retort violent abuse, derisive 
taunts, stinging scorn, pitying condemnation of those who 
deplored what they called his delay, cowardice, ignorance, 
timidity or inability. But, in his own good time, when pub- 
lic sentiment was ripe, he wrote without consultation and 
advice, and issued to the world the Proclamation of Emanci- 
pation. This immortal document was to the nation in truth 
"a new birth of freedom". It has taken its place with the 
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution among 
the great charters of our liberties. It enfranchised a race. 
It struck the shackles from 4,000,000 slaves. This was the 
crowning triumph of his life. No public man was ever so 
maligned, ridiculed, or vilified. Unmoved he pursued his 
way. His hatred of slavery was deepseated. His method to 
extinguish it was distinguished by lofty humanity and good 
sense. Never wavering, never hurrying, when the way 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 31 

opened for the final blow, he was prepared to strike. The 
will power gloved in the velvet of good humor, sympathy, 
kindness of heart, moved to the accomplishment of its ends 
as irresistibly as the sweep of nature's forces. 

"0 well for him whose will is strong ! 

He suffers, but he will not suffer long; 

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong : 

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, 

Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 

Who seems a promontory of rock. 

That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 

In middle ocean meets the surging shock. 

Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd." 

What m.anner of man was Abraham Lincoln? He was 
a giant in figure, six feet, four inches in height. He has 
been described by those who knew him in all the varying de- 
grees of characterization, from uncouth homeliness to im- 
pressive beauty of manly strength. His temperament was 
tinged with melancholy, but his never failing humor light- 
ened the dark places and lifted the cares of state. His apt- 
ness of anecdote baffled the curious and convinced the wa- 
vering. Although unlearned in books, he knew men and 
things and principles. He illumined every political question 
he touched. The motions of his intellect were slow. He said 
his mind was like apiece of steel, "very hard to scratch 
anything on it, and almost impossible when you got it there 
to rub it out". His belief in woman suffrage was early de- 
clared. No language of modern or ancient times has more 
scathingly denounced violation of law, whether by rich or 
poor, by the violence of the mob or by the plunder of the cor- 
ruptionist, than these words of Lincoln : 

"Let every American, every lover of liberty, 
every wellwisher to his posterity swear . . . never to 
violate in the least particular the laws of the coun- 
try, and never to tolerate their violation in others. 
Let every man remember that to violate the law is 
to trample on the blood of his fathers, and to tear 
the charter of his own and his children's liberty. 



32 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

• Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every 

American mother to the lisping babe that prattles 
f on her lap. Let it be taught in schools. In short, 

let it become the political religion of the nation. 

Among free men there can be no successful appeal 

from the ballot to the bullet." 

He compressed the relative rights of labor and capital 
into a single paragraph : 

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. 
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never 
have existed, if labor had not first existed. Labor is 
the superior of capital, and deserves much the 
higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which 
are as worthy of protection as any other rights." 

His religious convictions were deep, and his reliance 
upon Divine support was abiding. He accepted as his belief 
the Saviour's "condensed statement of both law and gospel. 
Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and 
with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as 
thyself." No president ever appointed so many days for 
national fasting and prayer. 

He established a new standard of literary excellence. No 
one of the thousands of addresses this day given in his me- 
mory will approach that standard in dignity, clearness and 
strength. His state papers and his speeches are models by 
which to take the literary measure of the statesman of the 
future. His last inaugural breathes the spirit of Hebrew 
prophecy, and his Gettysburg address will be read as long as 
English literature endures. The funeral oration of Pericles, 
the climax of Grecian eloquence, is no longer without an 
equal. The stately periods of Burke and the rhetorical mag- 
nificence of Macaulay must give place to the crystal clear- 
ness and the living power of the speech of this man of the 
common people. It is the crowning distinction of Lincoln to 
have excelled both in literature and statecraft, and to have 
made permanent contributions to both. 

He had infinite tact in dealing with men. The sorrow- 
ing heart of his great War Secretary, standing by the bed- 
side of the murdered president, uttered the grand eulogy : 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 33 

"There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever 
seen". Lack of support, opposition or abuse never blinded 
Lincoln to the true merit of any man or prevented him from 
doing him justice. He was the wisest man of that trying 
period. He stood on the lonely summit of human attain- 
ment. Seeming by his kindly word, his homely humor and 
'native modesty to be a brother to all, yet "his soul was like 
a star and dwelt apart". Others saw one side of a question. 
Its lights and shadows obscured to them a comprehensive 
vision. He alone towered high enough to see all sides and 
understand all bearings. 

His life is the inspiration of mankind. It brings hope 
to every American child, no matter how lowly his birth, how 
slender his opportunities or how oppressive the poverty of 
his surroundings. From the steps of the White House he 
once said : 

"I happen temporarily to occupy this big White 
House. I am a living witness that any one of your 
children may look to come here as my father's child 
has. It is in order that each one of you may have, 
through this free government which we have en- 
joyed, an open and a fair chance for your industry, 
enterprise and intelligence that you may all have 
equal privileges in the race of life with all its de- 
sirable human aspirations — it is for this that the 
struggle should be maintained, that we may not 
lose our birthright." 

This word to soldiers in the midst of a great war was 
perfectly adapted to the occasion, yet so burns with eternal 
truth that it is lifted out of place and time and becomes the 
appropriate watchword for every political and social move- 
ment for the uplift of mankind under free institutions. 

He was ambitious. He desired preferment, and appre- 
ciated deeply the corfidence of the people. But there were 
none of the common political methods about him. He be- 
lieved in the sober intelligence of the mass of the people. It 
was that to which he addressed himself. But his deep desire 
was for service, not for attainment. "Die when I may", he 
said, "I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I 
always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought 
a flower would grow". The world does not mind that he 



34 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

wrestled with the bullies of his neighborhood, that he um- 
pired the rude sports of his youth, that in his young man- 
hood his political judgment was once warped by popular 
clamor, that he lacked the graces of a dancing master and 
the manners of a Chesterfield, or that his wit could pierce 
the husk of coarseness. These traits mark him as human. 
But he was without a vice. No indiscretion stained the puri- 
ty of his life. No dissipation blurred his sensibilities. No 
bursts of temper marred the calmness of his self-control. No 
cunning corrupted his honesty. No inhumanity sullied the 
justice of his power. No favoritism or prejudice clouded his 
judgment of men. No pride of opinion dulled his percep- 
tions. No memory of personal wrong tarnished the magna- 
nimity of his treatment of others. No haughtiness scarred 
his humility. No passion or weakness darkened his wisdom. 
No spirit of revenge soiled the whiteness of his mercy. 

Four dreadful years of civil war, founded on the hideous 
wrong of human slavery, brought no thought of vengeance, 
no trace of hatred. He banished from the wish of the people 
all expectation of retaliation by the immortal words of his 
last inaugural : 

"With malice toward none ; with charity for 
all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to 
see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in : to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for 
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow, and his orphan — to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves and with all nations." 

It took the American people almost a generation to 
reach to the level of brotherly love and forgiveness of poli- 
tical mistakes upon which he stood even in the midst of the 
fiery trial of war. Washington was the father of his coun- 
try. But Lincoln was the defender of her liberty, the libera- 
tor of the slave, the preserver of the Union. 

Do you say his character is painted without a shadow? 
Hearken to the judgment of the heart of mankind. Listen 
to the verdict of history. The people of France by a penny 
collection struck a massive gold medal, on which was in- 
scribed: "Lincoln — the Honest man: abolished slavery: 



ORATION BY HON. RUGG. 35 

reestablished the Union : Saved the Republic without veiling 
the statue of Liberty." Disraeli spoke for the English 
aristocracy when he said: "There is in the character 
of the victim, and even in the accessories of his last 
moments, something so homely and innocent, that it 
takes the question . . . out of all pomp of history and the ce- 
remonial of diplomacy ; it touches the heart of nations and 
appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind.". The feel- 
ing of the British people was voiced by Tom Taylor, editor 
of Punch and author of the play which Lincoln was witness- 
ing at the time of his assassination : 

"Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and confute my pen — 
To make me own this hind of princes peer. 
This rail-splitter a true born king of men." 
Henri Martin, the historian of France, said : "This man 
will stand out in the traditions of his country and of the 
world as an incarnation of the people and of modern democ- 
racy itself." The Spanish Castelar called him "the humblest 
of the humble before his conscience, the greatest of the great 
before history." Emerson said : "In four years — four years 
of battle days — his endurance, his fertility of resources, his 
magnanimity were sorely tried and never found wanting. 
He is the true history of the American people in this time : — 
the true representative of this continent ; the pulse of twenty 
millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds 
articulated by his tongue." 

He sounded the deepest depths, he swept the loftiest 
summit of human experience. His colossal figure looms on 
the horizon of time, unchallenged, matchless in purity, peer- 
less in service to humanity. He will distinguish the nine- 
teenth century in the annals of earth when all its other 
monuments and idols shall have crumbled to dust. 

"Faith, Hope, Love, these three, but the greatest of 
these is Love". These elements unite to make the ideal life. 
Faith in the righteousness of an overruling Providence was 
Lincoln's. No word of despair escaped his lips, his action 
never faltered, but the hope that "right makes might" was 
the atmosphere in which he moved. "Greater love hath no 
man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends". 



36 LINCOLN ANNIVERSARY. 

On Good Friday, the day revered as the anniversary of the 
great sorrow of Christianity, he sealed his life of devotion to 
mankind with the last supreme sacrifice. 

Blessed above all nations is this United States, in the 
possession of the priceless legacy of his example and the in- 
comparable inspiration of his service. God grant that as a 
people we may live worthy of the memory of Abraham Lin- 
coln! 



CITY OF WORCESTER. 

In City Council, March 1, 1909. 

Resolved : That the thanks of the City of Worcester be 
and are hereby tendered to the Honorable Arthur P. Rugg, 
Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, for his 
wise, patriotic and inspiring oration on the life and services 
of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the meeting of the citizens 
of Worcester, held in Mechanics Hall on the evening of Feb- 
ruary 12, 1909. 

And that the City Clerk be instructed to transmit to him 
a copy of this resolution. 

Further, resolved : 

That it is desirable that the proceedings at the meeting 
of citizens in commemoration of the one-hundreth anni- 
versary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln be placed perma- 
nently on record by being printed at the expense of the City 
of Worcester. 

Received March 2, 1909. 

Approved March 2, 1909. 

James Logan, Mayor. 

A Copy, Attest : W. Henry Towne, City Clerk. 



37 



CONTENTS 

Abraham Lincoi^n Frontispiece. 

PAGE 

Order of City Council for Public Exercises by the Citi- 
zens of Worcester, Massachusetts in Commemoration 
of the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of 

Abraham Lincoln 4 

Introductory 5 

Programme of Public Exercises 9 

Prayer by Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thomas Griffin, D. D. . . . 10 

Address by Hon. James Logan, Mayor of Worcester. . 12 

Remarks by the Mayor, introducing Mr. Justice Rugg . 16 

Hon. Arthur P. Rugg Opposite 17 

Oration by Hon. Arthur P. Rugg, Associate Justice of 

the Supreme Judicial Court 17 



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